1763-1850

Katie Fry, Elizabeth Elcan, Lee Folk

Native Americans

Native Americans between 1763 and 1850 were not just kept from achieving the American

Dream; they had it ripped from their hands by ever-expanding, dishonorable white America.

Thesis

After the French and Indian war, the Native Americans realized that they could use European countries as an ally to hurt the Americans encroaching on their land in the west, leading to Pontiac’s Rebellion.

http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/french-indian.htm

Pontiac was a lesser known Ottawa chief who sided with the French during the French and Indian War.

He was angry when the British took over the French forts in the west after the war.

Pontiac’s Rebellion

http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/adamstephen/

Pontiac planned a direct attack on the British Fort Detroit, but the plan was leaked and when the warriors came into the fort, the British soldiers knew what was going on.

After devising a new plan, Pontiac’s men attacked surrounding farms, killing 3 civilians.

Pontiac pretended to agree to a truce but took the second in command of the fort hostage.

Pontiac’s Rebellion

http://www.burnpit.us/2010/08/battle-of-bushy-run-british-force-defeats-indians-relieve-fort-pitt/

After a few months under siege, the British received supplies and soldiers from Fort Niagara and Pontiac gave up.

The rebellion of other Native American tribes travelled to British outposts in the west.

More than 2,000 white settlers were killed during the rebellion.

The movement ended around 1763.Pontiac was killed in 1763 by a Peoria

warrior.

Pontiac’s Rebellion

The uprising was led by a Miami warrior named Little Turtle.

He fought whites on the western border of Ohio.

Battle of Fallen Timbers

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/image.php?img=960

Battle of Fallen TimbersOver 630 whites were

killed close to the Wabash River.

Attempts at a treaty were made but failed.

General Anthony Wayne brought in 4,000 troops to the Ohio River Valley and won an important victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. http://commons.wikimedia.org/

wiki/File:Ohiorivermap.png

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry-images.php?rec=43

Negotiated in 1785, after the Battle of Fallen Timbers.

The Miami tribe was promised that they can keep the land they occupy.

The other Native Americans gave up their claim to most of the land in the Ohio River Valley.

Created a temporary solution.The Iroquois rejected the treaty in 1786.The American settlers still continued to settle

on westward lands belonging to Native Americans, and they felt threatened.

Treaty of Greenville

The Constitution failed to mention any specific way of dealing with Native Americans.

They were not counted in the population (Art. 1).

Tribes are legal entities but not foreign countries.

Have no representation in the government.

The Constitution and Native Americans

Article 4 of the Constitution binds the new government to respect the treaties made by the old government in reference to Native Americans.

The old government had treaties to take land in the Northeast and Southeast from Iroquois, Choctaw, Cherokee and Chickasaw by force.

Broken Treaties

Tecumseh’s ResistanceBrother was Tenskwatawa

(the Prophet).Technically a Shawnee but

identified himself as an “Indian.”

Wanted Native American tribes to unify against whites.

Urged other Indians living in the area to avoid contact with whites, resist the temptation of alcohol, and not allow their land to be taken.

Killed by William Henry Harrison in 1813.

http://madmonarchist.blogspot.com/2010/07/monarchist-profile-chief-tecumseh.html

“If we are to wage a campaign against these Indians the end proposed should be their extermination, or their removal beyond the lakes of the Illinois river. The same world will

scarcely do for them and us.”

-Thomas Jefferson

1800-1830: Jeffersonian Policy

Jefferson’s View On Native Americans

Grew up always interested in Native American culture but didn’t think there was a place for it in the new America

Believed in the idea of “noble savages”- Indians were lesser than whites but were a respected race

Wanted to assimilate Indians into white culture

Native Americans in the South There were five major tribes occupying the area of Mississippi,

Alabama Georgia and Florida Know as “Five Civilized Tribes”

Cherokee Chickasaw Choctaw Creek Seminole

These tribes had a combined population of almost 60,000 They tried to assimilate into white culture in order to stay on their

land In the 1820s the United States government commissioned Jedidiah

Morse to write a detailed report covering all of the nation’s Indian Tribes.

He showed that the Native Americans were civilized in his report, which , “issued in 1822, waxed eloquent about the economic and educational progress of the five tribes and advised that they be left in peace to continue it” (Howe 342).

The “Five Civilized Tribes”

http://www.freeinfosociety.com/article.php?id=271

Cherokee Tribe Tries to AssimilateThe biggest of the five civilized tribes was the

Cherokee.They adopted white culture by changing their

family structure, taking on a plantation style lifestyle with slaves, and adopting democratic style government.

Overall, the Cherokee tribe did everything it could to assimilate like Jefferson had wanted but whites still saw them as savages and didn’t want them as part of their culture.

Whites were also eager to have them removed to take advantage of their valuable land.

Cherokee’s Change in Family StructurePreviously the Cherokee nation had the

women as the farmers and the men as hunters; the children were loyal to their mother’s tribe.

They adopted the US system of patriarchy where land is passed from father to son.

Wife became the domestic caretaker and the father moved to the head of household position.

Cherokee PlantationsTransformed into the Jeffersonian yeomen

farmers.As communication with whites increased the

Native American’s prejudice of blacks increased.

Cherokee plantations had slavesMore than 1,500 slaves in the Cherokee

nation

Cherokee DemocracyBicameral legislatureDistrict and superior court systemElective system of representation1827- adoption of formal constitution that

resembled US Constitution

Sequoyah’s Written Language Seen as a renaissance of

Cherokee culture Cherokee’s have a new

means of self expressionFirst Native American

News paper, The Cherokee Phoenix, was published in 1828

Only human ever known to have created a written language without knowing a different one before.

http://library.conlang.org/quotations/sequoyah.html

Seminole’s Adaptation to White CultureSeminole’s lived in Northern Florida and were

started after white settlers came to America.Although also civilized they didn’t simply

adopt white culture; they strongly resisted it.Also had black slaves but gave them their

own land and owners just demanded a yearly tribute.

Phrase “Seminole Negroes” is coined The Seminole Negroes fought alongside the

Seminoles in wars against Americans in the 1820s and ‘30s.

http://www.the-niceguy.com/articles/Leaving.html

Treaty of Moultrie Creek (1823) Six Seminole leaders claiming to speak for the

entire tribe signed the treaty (after taking bribes) that removed them from the fertile lands of northern Florida to its swamplands.

The treaty also required the return of runaway slaves and that the Seminoles turn away any future runaways.

For this reason, blacks were some of the strongest to protest Indian removal, and many blacks fought in the Second Seminole War.

Treaties like this were common.

Native Americans in the NorthwestBefore 1790s few people ventured across the

Appalachians but as the population continued to grow more and more people went into the Ohio area where many Native Americans were living.

These Native Americans were less unified and their numbers were already low after the war of 1812.

These tribes were more easily forced west of the Mississippi.

http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/delaware/biotrends/biological_trends.html

1830-1850 The Age of Jacksonian Policy

“They see that our professions are insincere, that our promises are broken, that the happiness of the Indian is a

cheap sacrifice to the acquisition of new lands.”

-James Barbour

Secretary of War under John Quincy Adams

(qtd. in Howe 348)

Before Age of Jackson

http://www.snowwowl.com/histandrewjackson.html

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/mar15.html

Thomas Jefferson believed in assimilation first and removal second.

The Native Americans who became civilized could stay and live independently on farms, like Americans, but those who refused would be removed to the west.

Jackson did not start the idea of Indian Removal.“The federal government had already taken

substantial strides toward removing Native Americans from the East by the time Jackson entered the White House” (Brinkley 244).

Policy Before Jackson

Because of his history of fighting Native Americans and his need for Southern support, Jackson supported an aggressive removal policy.

Jackson’s policy left America with two options in dealing with the Native Americans: to either crush the tribes if the resisted removal, or force Removal on them and basically practice genocide.

His stated purpose was to secure more farmland for independent farmers who he believed to be the basis of society.

Andrew Jackson’s Removal Policy: Move ‘em or defeat ‘em

Jackson made his name fighting Native Americans in the early 1800s.

Led the Tennessee militia at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814, where he crushed the Creek nation.

In his military service he had coerced tribes to move west.

Andrew Jackson’s Background with Indians

http://andysallpointswest.blogspot.com/2009/08/battle-of-horseshoe-bend-hidden-gem-in.html

“Why does not the Great Father put his red children on wheels so that he can move them as he will?”

-Spotted Tail

Sioux Chief

(qtd. in Brands 455)

Age of Jackson

When Jackson came into office, his first priority was Indian Removal.

Southern states hastened Removal In 1829, Cherokees found gold on their land in Georgia. Because the federal government was not acting fast

enough, Georgia, wanting Native American land, proclaimed state jurisdiction over the Indians’ tribal lands.

Federal treaties had secured the lands for the Indians, so it was basically another case of Southern states nullifying federal law, but as expected Andrew Jackson supported the states.

He used it both as a political ploy to get white Southern support and as a way to carry out his personal prejudices about Native Americans.

By the end of Jackson’s presidency, he had dislocated 46,000 Native Americans.

He gained 100 million acres of Indian land.

Jackson’s Indian Removal

Georgia tried to remove the Cherokees from Georgia to get their land.

The Cherokees appealed to the Supreme Court to stop the white encroachment on their land.

John Marshall and the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Cherokee.

Jackson supposedly responded, “John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it” (qtd. in Brinkley 245).

Worcester v. Georgia (1832)

Set aside money to finance treaty negotiations between southern tribes and the federal government to try to get the tribes to relocate to the West.

The government wanted to make the Removal “legal,” so they made the tribes sign treaties.

Jackson did not care about the appearance of legality; he just wanted them gone.

Indian Removal Bill (1830)

The Trial of Tears

http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/2005/08/the_trail_of_te.html

Over a period of eight years, the US military rounded up the Native Americans in detention camps and then forced them to walk to Oklahoma (a few went to Kansas and Nebraska).

The first tribe removed on the Trail of Tears was the Choctaws from Mississippi and western Alabama in 1830.

The Creeks were the only other group to go during Jackson’s Presidency, in 1836.

The final two tribes to be completely relocated, the Chickasaw in 1837, and the Cherokee in 1838, made the westward trek to Oklahoma under Martin Van Buren.

For the entire trail of tears nearly 4,000 of the 16,000 Native Americans died.

The Trail of Tears (1830-1838)

Source: What

Hath God

Wrought

Map: Trail of Tears

It prohibited any white person from entering the Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, without a license.

The Territory was one big reservation for all Native Americans because the government did not believe the land to the west of it to be desirable.

It also acted as a buffer. Later Americans broke this law, just like any

other conserving Indian land, when they wanted to expand West.

Indian Intercourse Act (1834)

Conflicts Between Americans and Indians

Black Hawk, the leader of a group of Sauk Indians, tried to escape their traditional enemies, the Sioux, by crossing the Mississippi and going into their traditional lands in Illinois.

By doing this, he refused to recognize a treaty with the American Government that would force them to give up those lands.

The Illinois militia attacked the Sauk and killed most of them even as they tried to surrender.

They captured Black Hawk and displayed him as a trophy of war.

The Black Hawk War (1831-1832)

http://mcns.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/black-hawk-and-his-son-whirling-thunder/

A small part of the Seminole Nation, with Black Seminoles as the largest proponents of resistance, fought against Indian Removal led by Osceola.

They used guerilla warfare to fight off the American soldiers sent by Jackson.

Osceola was captured under a flag of truce and died in prison, but the Seminoles continued to fight.

In 1842, the American Government quit fighting which left a very few Seminoles in Florida, so it was the only of the 5 Civilized Tribes to not be completely relocated.

Second Seminole War (1835-1842)

When gold was found in California in 1849, thousands of white settlers moved west.

They broke the Indian Intercourse Act along the way: another example of whites breaking treaties with the Indians when it became convenient.

When the settlers arrived in California they burned Native American towns and settlements.

They also spread disease, like the Europeans had when they first came, and the diseases severely lowered the Indian population.

Gold Rush of 1849

http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~earlb/overland.htm

It was impossible to stop white expansion westward, but removal was not necessary.

Women like Catharine Beecher petitioned Congress opposing Removal.

Many people opposed Removal on religious grounds because it meant giving up on Christianizing them.

The issue that prevented Assimilation was the racist attitudes of all Americans but mostly Southern whites.

Could Indian Removal Have Been Avoided?

Some westerners did prove that they could work side by side with Indians.

“In 1833, Bent’s Fort in what is now southeastern Colorado began to facilitate commerce among Americans, Mexicans, and the Indian tribes of the southern Plains; it became ‘the capital of the southern fur trade.’” (Howe 49)

Whites and Native Americans did work together successfully, so it was possible.

The answer is yes it could have been avoided, but the attitudes towards Native Americans held by most Americans still encouraged Removal, and therefore destroyed the American Dream for Indians.

Positive Interaction

Brands, H W., et al. American Stories. New York: Pearson Longman, 2009. Print.

Brinkley, Alan. American History a Survey. N.p.: McGraw Hill, 2007. Print.

Ellis, Joseph J. American Creation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. Print.

Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. MyiLibray.Web. 9 Nov. 2010.

Works Cited